It’s unclear if enlisting large robots for dental procedures like fillings and crowns will make visits any more pleasant—if anything, it’s easier to envision many patients canceling their appointments at such a possibility. Still, at least one company swears autonomous machines are destined for dentistry, and reportedly tested one on a human volunteer as proof.
Perceptive, based in Boston, promises its combination of advanced optical coherence tomography (OCT), AI programming, and robotics will one day dramatically reduce time spent in the chair for many standard teeth treatments. At the same time, they intend to deploy their technology (still in the prototype stages) to underserved communities while offering more accurate health assessments than today’s commonplace X-ray screenings. But if you still aren’t sold on the thought of ceding your chompers to an AI-guided drill bit, Perceptive apparently went ahead and queued up a demonstration video—sidestepping FDA approval in order to show its machine autonomously preparing a patient’s tooth for a dental crown.
According to Perceptive, their machine can already handle the normally two-hour, two-session process in just a single, 15-minute sitting. To achieve this eightfold reduction in time, the company relies on an “easy-to-use, handheld intraoral scanner” that uses OCT technology to capture three-dimensional data of a patient’s mouth, including under the tooth surface, below the gum line, and through any residual fluids. Perceptive claims its 3D, light-based OCT imaging is 90-percent accurate in detecting cavity formations versus an allegedly 45-percent accuracy found with current 2D X-ray readings, while also generating no ionizing radiation in the process.
[Related: What does oil pulling do to your teeth? We asked dentists.]
For what it’s worth, however, experts have long stressed the safety of X-ray dental imaging techniques. Earlier this year, the American Dental Association (ADA) even updated its guidelines, stating that patients often no longer need to wear lead aprons or thyroid collars during modern X-ray scans.
Still, it’s Perceptive’s OCT scans that can be fed into its AI programming to construct high-resolution scans of a tooth, which it then uses to quickly plan out a customized approach to preparing it for a dental crown. After consultation with a human dentist, the machine then gets to work drilling away the exterior within 15 minutes, “even under the most movement-heavy conditions,” according to the website. From there, an actual dentist can take over, although Perceptive notes that it’s hoping to expand its robot’s various duties down the line.
In a July 30 statement, Perceptive’s CEO and founder says he is looking forward to “advancing our system and pioneering scalable, fully automated dental healthcare solutions for patients.” Of course, that’s going to require that yet-to-be-received FDA approval before larger, regulator-reviewed testing can commence. To be fair, robotic systems are already widely used across an ever-increasing number of invasive surgical procedures, so adding dental exams to that list isn’t the most far-fetched idea—and it probably beats people’s options barely a century ago.
UPDATE 8/1/2024 8:45AM: This article has been updated to reflect Perspective’s IRB approval and prototype capabilities. It is intended for fillings and dental crowns, not root canals.